Maybe Some Day

Chapter 6

It was the day.

The day I would finally get off my arse and ask out Hermione.

I strutted down the corridors, Draco and Blaise at my side, to the doors of the Great Hall.

I thrusted them open to face the House tables.

After surveying the surprised faces that turned in my direction, I found Granger. Like most mornings, she had her bushy head stuck in a book.

I puffed out my chest, took a deep breath and -

- turned immediately in the direction of the Slytherin table and took a seat.

"You'll get her next time, Pans," Draco said encouragingly from my left side.

"No, I -"

"No, she won't," Blaise interrupted me.

I sighed and banged my head against my plate, which attracted several worried looks from some first years and a few eye rolls from my peers.

"Oh, stop pouting, will you!"

"Stuff it, Blaise."

"Yeah, stuff it, Blaise." Draco decided to chime in.

"Oh, we all know you're a bottom, Drake."

"Save the aggression for Weasley, will you?"

"You, bast -"

"SHUT IT, BOTH OF YOU."

Draco and Blaise did not speak to each other until Double Potions in the afternoon. (They sure did quite a bit if glaring, though)

During the same double Potions lesson, Hermione and I were paired (yippee!), by our wonderful Potions master, Severus Snape.

I won't lie, I loathed that man for a whole year after he called Hermione an insufferable know-it-all.

"Pass me the mandrake bits, please?"

"Y-yeah." I dropped half of them on the floor.

I bent to pick them up, blubbering apologies incoherently, only to bump heads with Granger.

I stumbled backwards, and nearly dropped my wand into the cauldron.

If not for Hermione Granger's quick hands, that is.

"Here you go."

She held out the hand that held my wand, and I stood there for a full thirty seconds just staring, transfixed at the witch I wanted so badly.

She looked stunning that today. Her bronze cheeks were flushed from the heat of the fumes dispensed by the draught of peace potion we were brewing. Her usually smooth coils of hair had become a frizzy mass pulled back by muggle barrettes. These would come loose so often, that I enjoyed watching Hermione huff irritatedly, and jostle precariously as she roughly pulled sections of her hair back to clip them again.

"Parkinson? Are you ill?"

I had been staring, but I couldn't be bothered. I wanted to stay there forever, with her beautifully bewildered, blissfully unaware expression. I wondered how her unruly coils would feel under my fingertips. How it would feel if she moaned against my mouth as I snogged her into the oblivion.

Stone cold reality crashed back down as I started, realizing many of our peers were watching us curiously. I laughed, humorless and short before turning back to the potion.

I caught many curious stares that day, but I paid them no mind. The only person that mattered wasn't staring at me with curiosity.

Hermione was watching me with a decisiveness so frightening I recall wishing Neville would explode his potion. If the git wasn't absent, the dungeons would've erupted in chaos and there wouldn't have  been a fiercely attractive woman looking at me as though she might be slightly interested in my person.

But back then all I knew was Hermione was a glorious specimen, and I wasn't worthy of the parchment she threw in the bin.